When you are designing your book, do you keep the photos full bleed or do you reduce to fit within their trim lines? I am confused because it says what is behind the trim lines "may" be cut off, and then the area shaded in pink may be lost in the gutter. I am not too worried about the outide edges, but in the center where the book is bound, do you lose a ton of your image? I am concerned also about 2 page spreads - I have a few in my current book and I don't know if I should be sliding my images outward to make sure I see it all. Any help would be appreciated!
Oops. After I typed this, I realized you meant Blurb books, specifically. I haven't printed that brand. After I did my first book, I try to scrap taking the bleed area into account. If a lot of my "stuff" is in the bleed area, I will shrink the page down or mat it with another page. But if you shrink it down too far, you definitely may have white lines around the outside. For two page spreads, I don't lose a lot of the middle, the books I've ordered open pretty flat. But if you shrink one side down, you'll want to shrink the other side down equally.
The last Blurb book I did I printed with 1/2inch plain border all the way around instead of the full bleed option. I thought it dealt with the binding very nicely - with a book of about 150+ pages, most of the 1/2 inch in the binding is "hidden," and nothing was trimmed or lost.
wow tiffany! that's a great view of an example of the print with the border!! thanks for sharing that!
that is super helpful, Tiffany! thank you! i'm curious, about printing in general... do you guys "sharpen" your pages before you upload them? or lighten or alter them in any way for printing in books? i've not ever had any issues printing loose pages for framing and such, but some of the pages in my last book looked a bit blurry to me and most of them were darker than what my pages look like on my screen. i was very disappointed.
I just printed two years worth of pages with blurb. I put a white border all around, then a light shadow on my actual LO. I really like the way it turned out. I did have some issues with the binding and it took three printings to get a book that I liked. Customer service was very good and reprinted for me each time when I had pictures to show the problem. You can see in this photo of the first book how the pages are laying too flat and not glued quite enough. The colors were great on the first book, the second washed out and the third was in-between the two. I picked the Pro matte paper and really liked it.
Tiff, what kind of paper did you use with Blurb? The last book I did was a 7x7 book and it was a flat matte... Yours appears to be glossy and I am in process of doing a book now, and your pages look great... just curious what the paper type is in the book you are showing. Thanks!
Christa, my book was 12x12 and I used the Premium paper. It's been about 2 years since I printed, so I don't know if they have more paper choices now. At that time there was just regular paper and premium paper. It is a thick paper. I wouldn't call it glossy, but it does have a sheen to it. (I think the photographs make it look a bit more glossy than it is) The pages almost looks and feel as if they have a light plastic coating, as if it would repel water.
I print with Photobox here in the Uk as they are the only ones I have found who have 30 pages books for £13.... but I just looked at Blurb, they have a UK site, need to have a look at prices, the books here look amazing!
I just did our 20th Anniversary trip book.. 92 pages with premium everything and no border, I did it at full page 12x12. I just made sure my background allowed for the trim line. (wrote an action in CS# to quicken the process) All my pages have the same background so that worked out pretty well. I had a time with the uploading of the files and had to adjust my file size so it did not keep crashing the site. Once I finally got it all up and loaded I am pretty pleased. I will get the book on 3/7 so I am pretty excited. - the book I did in the past through blurb was 7x7 and the "best" Cheapest paper. The book is cute, but last year when I did it, I said the next book will be full blown so I am looking forward to getting it, and will update all when it is received. @THE MrsPeel - check on line for a blurb coupon. They always have coupons too.. I was buying 2 books and I got 20% off so I was thrilled!
